Electrical Outage Dounreay Planned Compliance Inspection

Site: Dounreay

IR number: 14-002

Date: April 2014

LC numbers: 11

Executive summary

Purpose of intervention

In line with the 2014/15 inspection plan for Dounreay I carried out planned inspections and other interventions to provide confidence that Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd. (DSRL) is controlling its hazards properly and complying with its statutory obligations.

Interventions carried out by ONR

I accompanied a specialist inspector on part of his inspection for compliance with the Ionising Radiation Regulations (IRR). I met with a range of staff to discuss current issues.

Explanation of judgement if safety system not judged to be adequate

N/A.

Key findings, Inspector's opinions and reasons for judgements made

ONR's opinion on the outcome of Delta 50 was that it had been an adequate demonstration of Dounreay's emergency arrangements. Our main concerns related to the invoking of the site's lock-down procedure: lock-down seemed to go on for too long because of an apparent lack of proactivity in the Site Emergency Control Centre (SECC). In the joint de-brief meeting ONR stated that quicker actions in the SECC would have led to quicker casualty recovery and sealing of the breach and more expedient dispatch of the district survey vehicles.

The outcome of the IRRs inspection will be conveyed in the specialist inspector's Intervention Report.